Not dead, but... geez.

[mandolin]

Well, it's been a hectic weekend, and I got home last night, and have been TRYING to work on my portion of the paper. And I've finally realized what my problem is with it.

I've been biting off way more than I can chew.

The paper's only supposed to be 15-20 pages. There are 4 of us. So that works out to maybe 5-6 pages of paper apiece. (In case one member of our group can't fill out a section, I'm guessing 6.)

One group member already posted a 6-page, fairly concise draft of his section on viruses, trojans and worms.

It makes the amount of junk I have seem SPRAWLING.

See, I'm taking e-mail privacy (government surveillance, ISP snooping, employer snooping), and rounding off the report with data mining because it has to be touched on.

Between Carnivore, Councilman vs. USA, the Enron online data dump of '03, WebFountain, the Total Information Act, and Gmail... there is NO WAY this is only going to be 6 pages. Let's not forget that the US Code with regard to electronic surveillance is messy as all hell.

Also, there's certain sections I can't find a good "official" source to cover - we need to pay lip service to "how" privacy is violated, briefly touching on the technology used. I can't believe how hard it is to find LEGIT information on how packet sniffers work that will give me a basic overview and not bury me in the details. (Which I need to avoid. This is more about the social aspects.)

I'm tempted to say the hell with it and just use the HowStuffWorks entry on packet sniffers since the FBI and Dept. of Justice took down the generic overview of how Carnivore works. *sulk* Not to mention no one talks about how ISPs and employers scan e-mails (although since both sources are usually supplying the e-mail service, I think the "how" should be intuitive - network administrator privileges, anyone?).

Man, I cut the topic down from Networks and Personal Privacy to just the Internet and Personal Privacy... and I can't imagine the glut of info we'd have if I hadn't.

Bleah.

Oh, and the neighbor's alarm went off from 6:30 to 9:30 again this morning. *sigh* You know, I may just ask him if it happens again, if he'll allow me to call emergency maintenance to ask them to shut the alarms off. Seriously, it's an honest mistake, and I just want to know how to deal with it if it happens again.

Comments

[marag.livejournal.com]

My sympathies. I was notorious in school for biting off more than I could chew. Take the very first paper I wrote for Intro to Cultural Anthropology, which was supposed to be 15 pages. I got an A (for audacity, I think) for my attempt to compare Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. ::snort:: It was a load of crap, but I think the prof really gave me that A because I went to the trouble of reading Max Weber ;)

Of the topics you're covering, the one I know best is data mining. That's because it's my father's area of expertise at the National Security Agency. As you might imagine, the data he works with is classified, but the data mining techniques he's helping to develop aren't, so he tells me about them. It's a fascinating field that really deserves a 15-20 page paper on its own!

[weirdweb.livejournal.com]

Heh, actually, that's a topic we're probably only going to be able to touch on briefly, strictly because Dr. L's been insisting we go light on the technical details and go for the social aspects to avoid overlap. So I've had to only go over the "Cliffs Notes" version of some basic privacy-preserving techniques.

The real headache in researching this sucker? US laws with regard to electronic privacy are a big freaking mess. I cut CALEA legislation out of the paper because the furor over it's giving me a migraine (and then I'd have to explain how it originally applied to telecommunications systems, not ISPs and VoIP services, and then... well, I'd be going crazy.)

*sigh* Need to try to con my group into meeting after class Tuesday. We have to. Blah.

[violetbloom.livejournal.com]

Leave neighbor a note pinned to his door with a knife... The note being polite as pie of course... the knife is just for emphasis...

[kevenn.livejournal.com]

WORD!

[marielogan.livejournal.com]

PERFECT!